ٱلْبَقَرَة : ٧١

  • قَالَ He said
  • إِنَّهُۥ Indeed He
  • يَقُولُ says
  • إِنَّهَا [Indeed] it
  • بَقَرَةٞ (is) a cow
  • لَّا not
  • ذَلُولٞ trained
  • تُثِيرُ to plough
  • ٱلۡأَرۡضَ the earth
  • وَلَا and not
  • تَسۡقِي water
  • ٱلۡحَرۡثَ the field
  • مُسَلَّمَةٞ sound
  • لَّا no
  • شِيَةَ blemish
  • فِيهَاۚ in it
  • قَالُواْ They said
  • ٱلۡـَٰٔنَ Now
  • جِئۡتَ you have come
  • بِٱلۡحَقِّۚ with the truth
  • فَذَبَحُوهَا So they slaughtered it
  • وَمَا and not
  • كَادُواْ they were near
  • يَفۡعَلُونَ (to) doing (it)
He said, "He says, 'It is a cow neither trained to plow the earth nor to irrigate the field, one free from fault with no spot upon her.'" They said, "Now you have come with the truth." So they slaughtered her, but they could hardly do it.
He said, 'He says she shall be a cow not broken, not subdued for labour, that is, to plough the earth, churning its soil for sowing (tutheer al-ard: the clause describes the word dhalool, and constitutes part of the negation); or to water the tillage, that is, the land prepared for sowing; one safe, from faults and the effects of toil; with no blemish, of a colour other than her own, on her'. They said, 'Now you have brought the truth', that is, [now] you have explained it clearly; they thus sought it out and found it with a boy very dutiful towards his mother, and they eventually purchased it for the equivalent of its weight in gold; and so they sacrificed her, even though they very nearly did not, on account of its excessive cost. In a hadeeth [it is stated that], 'Had they sacrificed any cow, it would have sufficed them, but they made it difficult for themselves and so God made it difficult for them'.